Within the last few months, the view on hacker activity has drastically changed. Hackers as in those who search for vulnerabilities to exploit an application, have almost always been thought as an unethical use for a computer. For example, a few months ago there was a number of incidents written about a group of hackers who had been finding vulnerabilities in big applications and then selling the information to third parties. They claimed to be a group of terrorists. Very recently, the view for many people on hacker activity has shifted to a more neutral or even positive one. According to the article I have attached above from CSMonitor, companies have placed bounties on themselves to encourage external hackers to find bugs in the software. One hacker earned 63,000 dollars in bug bounty money through one company alone. While this tactic has protected companies from some hacker attacks, some in the public worry that this will open a new age of hackers. It will attract many more programmers to engage in hacking. It will also give a safe ethical way for hackers who would do mischief, to practice their skills.
No comments:
Post a Comment